Daniel P Horan in the NCR writes on the closure of churches and the suspension of public acts of worship in this time of pandemic.
“we are all called upon to care for one another by taking extraordinary measures that includes the suspension of public worship, means learning to see our love of neighbor not only as an assent to “worldly” or “secular” medical wisdom, but also an actual exercise of our love of God. Each of the manifold ways we are sacrificing to love our neighbors — self-isolation, quarantining, tending to the sick at home, supporting first responders, avoiding public places, not hoarding supplies, working remotely and even not going physically to church buildings — is itself an expression of our love of God.”
Like Fr.Gribowich, I have long been entertained and enthralled by the Bard of Hibbing. He has been exploring the core of human existence – relationship – since the early sixties, in music, poetry and prose. It pleases me that Fr. Gribowich has sought to interpret Dylan’s latest work as a cogent analysis of humanity’s relationship with life and death, history, politics, philosophy etc. It appears to me that a great chasm has opened between popular culture and our institutional Church, where the latter would appear to regard the former with mistrust and offering little by way of commentary on the human condition. Roman Catholicism as Church has lost touch with modern culture, except for individual Catholics who are prepared to ask “why?” and “why not?”
Brendan Hoban, in another post, beautifully meditates on the relationship between life and death and the role of memory and imagination in coming to terms with our mortality. I remember a priest, at the funeral mass of his mother, acknowledging the great sacrifices his mother had made when the family were growing up. He pointed to all the occasions she had to let them go in their journey through life, and now it was their turn to let her go. Dylan reflects on that theme of “letting go”, be it the ego, certainties, reputations, and life itself. Brilliant for “a song and dance man”.
And he ain’t no false prophet!